Book Description

Book Description

This is a comprehensive account of RR Lyrae stars, and traces the story from their initial discovery a century ago, through to their present status. This book reviews our current understanding of RR Lyrae stars. It is a unique explanation of the multiple applications of these variable stars for a range of astrophysical problems. Horace A. Smith describes the use of RR Lyrae stars as probes of old stellar populations, both in the Milky Way and other galaxies, and as an outstanding testing ground for stellar evolution and pulsation theories. He stresses the significance of variable stars for our ultimate understanding of the history and scale of the Milky Way and nearer extragalactic systems. For advanced students and researchers of astronomy, this is a definitive account of the modern theories surrounding RR Lyrae stars. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Definitive Book
If you are interested in variable stars and specifically in RR Lyrae stars, this is the authoritative source. It has a general overview and then discusses many of the specifics of galactic and cluster RR Lyr stars. It is very readable for amateur astronomers although it is aimed at graduate level students and professional astronomers. ... Read more

Book Description

Celestron's NexStar telescopes were introduced in 1999, beginning with their first computer controlled "go to" model, a 5-inch. More models appeared in quick succession, and Celestron's new range made it one of the two dominant manufacturers of affordable "go to" telescopes. Michael Swanson's online discussions with literally thousands of NexStar owners made it clear that there was a desperate need for a book such as this - one that provides a complete, detailed guide to buying, using and maintaining NexStar telescopes. Although this book is highly comprehensive, it is suitable for beginners - there is a chapter on "Astronomy Basics" - and experts alike. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Comprehensive. Concise. Practical.
This is excellent. This text provides all the information you will need to troubleshoot your nexstar system. I have recommended that it be shipped with each nexstar telescope sold.
Celestron could save a lot of time answering questions if they would do so.

Indispensable!
If you are looking to use a Celestron Nexstar computer guided GOTO telescope and mount, then this book will take you through every stage of setup, operation and maintenance, in a very user-friendly and readable manner. For the novice astronomer, the first chapter provides a thorough 40-page introduction on basic observational astronomy. Additional elements include chapters on astronomical software, connecting a PC, photography and planning your observations. In short, very highly recommended.

Wonderful resource!
This book is a must have for any owner of a NexStar series telescope. I've owned my NexStar11 GPS for almost three years and find Mike's book very informative and well written. It's wonderful to have a such an incredibly detailed resource at your fingertips. No matter if you are thinking of buying or already own a NexStar telescope, I highly recommend you add this book to your library.

celestron 9.25 user
I recently purchased a Celestron 9.25" Nexstar telescope. The scope is great but the owner's manual that came with it leaves a lot to be desired. After just a quick scan of Swanson's book, I discovered several useful tips that I have already put to use (e.g., how to position the index marking decal that had come off; the Nexstar Resource site; and the availability of a template from Starizona for making it easier to put the scope on the tripod). Anyone thinking about buying a Celeston Nexstar scope should consider purchasing this book. ... Read more

Book Description

This book presents fundmentals of orbit determination--from weighted least squares approaches (Gauss) to today's high-speed computer algorithms that provide accuracy within a few centimeters. Numerous examples and problems are provided to enhance readers' understanding of the material.

*Covers such topics as coordinate and time systems, square root filters, process noise techniques, and the use of fictitious parameters for absorbing un-modeled and incorrectly modeled forces acting on a satellite.
*Examples and exercises serve to illustrate the principles throughout each chapter.
*Detailed solutions to end-of-chapter exercises available to instructors. ... Read more

Book Description

This monograph provides an accessible introduction to the theory, and the large-scale simulation methods currently used in radiation hydrodynamics, the study of the dynamics of matter interacting with radiation, when the radiation is strong enough to have a profound effect on the matter. Radiation hydrodynamics applies to normal stars, exploding stars or stars with violent winds, active galaxies, and on Earth wherever matter is very hot. The volume is a valuable text for research scientists and graduate students in physics and astrophysics. ... Read more

Book Description

Radio pulsars are rapidly rotating, highly magnetized neutron stars. This comprehensive book brings together key observational techniques, background information and a review of the latest results, including the recent discovery of a double pulsar system. Useful software tools are provided to analyze example data, made available on a related website. The work will be of great value to graduate students and researchers wishing to carry out and interpret a wide variety of radio pulsar observations. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

tight integration of book and website
The coolest aspect of the book is its tight integration with the associated website that has scads of observational data. Along with various software that lets you analyse the data for yourself. Any of you in research who've had to write software should appreciate the amount of effort that has gone into the coding of that software.

The book also provides you with a very recent (2004) assessment of the best current understanding of pulsars. With many references to the original research papers.

But the combination of text and website is a harbinger of future astronomy books, as volumes of data keep increasing. Traditional texts gave you no such access. ... Read more

Book Description

In the 1960s and 1970s deep space missions were dispatched in pairs in case one was lost in launch or failed during its journey. Following the triumphs of the Viking landings on Mars in 1976 and both Voyagers spacecraft successfully surveying the outer giant planets of the Solar System, it was decided by NASA to cut costs and send out just a single probe. Although Magellan successfully mapped Venus by radar, it suffered from problems during the flight. Then came the loss of Mars Observer, whose engine exploded as it was preparing to enter Mars’ orbit because it was using technology designed for Earth’s satellites and the engine was not suited to spending several months in space. Later came the high-profile losses of Mars Climate Observer and Mars Polar Lander - a consequence of the faster, better, cheaper philosophy introduced by Dan Goldin in 1993. Even the highly successful Galileo mission suffered a major setback when its high-gain antenna (also based on satellite mission suffered a major setback when its high-gain antenna (also based on satellite communication technology) failed to deploy fully, greatly diminishing the craft’s radio transmission capabilities, forcing the ground crew to re-programme the on-board computer to enable it to fulfil its mission and provide stunning images of Jupiter and its moons. In Space Systems Failures, David Harland (here working with co-author Ralph Lorenz) describes the many quite fascinating tales of woe involving failures of rockets, satellites and deep space missions in his inimitable style, providing a unique insight into the trials and tribulations of exploration at the high frontier. ... Read more

Book Description

The emerging multidisciplinary field of earth system science sets out to improve our understanding functioning ecosystems, at a global level across the entire planet. Stable Isotopes and Biosphere - Atmosphere Interactions looks to one of its most powerful toolsthe application of stable isotope analysesto understanding biosphere-atmosphere exchange of the greenhouse gases, and synthesizes much of the recent progress in this work.

Stable Isotopes and Biosphere - Atmosphere Interactions describes recent progress in understanding the mechanisms, processes and applications of new techniques. It makes a significant contribution to the emerging, multidisciplinary study of the Earth as an interacting system.This book will be an important reference for students and researchers in biology, ecology, biogeochemistry, meteorology, and atmospheric science and will be invaluable for anyone with any interest in the future of the planet.

* Describes applications of new stable isotope techniques to the emerging fields of earth system science and global change
* Illustrates advances in scaling of physiological processes from leaf/soil to the global scale
* Contains state-of-the-art, critical reviews written by international researchers and experts ... Read more

Book Description

During the last twenty years, dramatic improvements in methods of observing astrophysical phenomena from the ground and in space have added to our knowledge of what the universe is like now and what it was like in the past, going back to the hot big bang. In this overview of today's physical cosmology, P.J.E. Peebles shows how observation has combined with theoretical elements to establish the subject as a mature science, while he also discusses the most notable recent attempts to understand the origin and structure of the universe. A successor to Peebles's classic volume Physical Cosmology (Princeton, 1971), the book is a comprehensive overview addressed not only to students but also to scientists active in fields outside cosmology.

The first chapter of the work presents the elements of physical cosmology, including the history of the discovery of the expanding universe. The second, on the cosmological tests that measure the geometry of spacetime, discusses general relativity theory as the basis for the tests, and then surveys the broad variety of ways the tests can be applied with the new generations of telescopes and detectors. The third chapter deals with the origin of galaxies and the large-scale structure of the universe, and reviews ideas about how the evolution of the universe might be traced back to very early epochs when structure originated. Each section of these chapters begins with an introduction that can be understood with no special knowledge beyond undergraduate physics, and then progresses to more specialized topics.

P.J.E. Peebles is Albert Einstein Professor of Science at Princeton University. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A big disapointment!
Although the book overviews many topics in cosmology, it seems an excersise in personal interests of the writer. The results are often not directly applicable to "real-life" situations and rewritting of formulae is usually required. Personally, I would recommend the book "Cosmological Physics" by Peacock, which is much more transparent and up-to-date. ... Read more

Book Description

This is the definitive treatment of the phenomenology of galaxies--a clear and comprehensive volume that takes full account of the extraordinary recent advances in the field. The book supersedes the classic text Galactic Astronomy that James Binney wrote with Dimitri Mihalas, and complements Galactic Dynamics by Binney and Scott Tremaine. It will be invaluable to researchers and is accessible to any student who has a background in undergraduate physics.

The book draws on observations both of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and of external galaxies. The two sources are complementary, since the former tends to be highly detailed but difficult to interpret, while the latter is typically poorer in quality but conceptually simpler to understand. Binney and Merrifield introduce all astronomical concepts necessary to understand the properties of galaxies, including coordinate systems, magnitudes and colors, the phenomenology of stars, the theory of stellar and chemical evolution, and the measurement of astronomical distances. The book's core covers the phenomenology of external galaxies, star clusters in the Milky Way, the interstellar media of external galaxies, gas in the Milky Way, the structure and kinematics of the stellar components of the Milky Way, and the kinematics of external galaxies.

Throughout, the book emphasizes the observational basis for current understanding of galactic astronomy, with references to the original literature. Offering both new information and a comprehensive view of its subject, it will be an indispensable source for professionals, as well as for graduate students and advanced undergraduates. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

There is NO better book
For observational astronomy this is it: there is no better book The fact that the information is somehow out of date is not important, because the subject is mainly how the results are obtained, rather than the results themselves. This is a professional book for professional astronomers, cosmologists and astrophysicists at a graduate level. At this level the math is trivial. Most problems are very simple and do not involve difficult calculations, but rather simple, intuitive reasoning. In fact the math is simple enough that the book should be useful also for (very) advanced amateur astronomers.

The book only seems difficult because it contains so much information. This is actually an advantage, especially given the very reasonable price. The writing style is very clear. As an example I will quote verbatim the author's description of the importance of "dust" in interstellar space:

"The space between the stars is not empty. It is filled with rarefied but exceedingly filthy gas; if this gas were compressed to the density of ordinary air [...] the density of smoke in it would be such that objects would disappear into the haze at a distance of much less than a meter. Interstellar gas is so filthy because many stars are furnaces of the least environment-friendly type..."

Is this not clear enough?

Just an amazing textbook covering masses of astrophysics...
This book is, as it says on the cover, for readers with a background in physics - specifically, for professionals, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates. It will therefore be heavily mathematical, as there is no other way in which to express the theories within, and to quantitatively distinguish between them - an essential part of all scientific research.

The ideas are explained clearly, and there are frequent up-to-date references: the book was published mid-1998, and updated quite a lot from its previous incarnation. Where a field is moving very rapidly, like in parts of astrophysics, there is clearly always a danger that the work will become out of date, but most (at least all I have had to read) of what is in this book is still current.

This book is not only beautifully written, and presented, it also covers an incredible range of subjects, making it suitable not only for background reading for those who study galactic astrophysics, but also those working in stellar astrophysics. The authors clearly know their stuff in very wide-ranging areas of astrophysics, and are passionate about them, as it comes across very clearly, and adds to the joy of reading this book.

One of the many things that makes this such a wonderful book is the clear linking of astrophysical phenomena with basic physics, something which is easy to lose sight of when confronted with exotic objects and processes. A particularly lovely example of this (IMO) is the explanation of the effects of the kappa-mechanism in variable stars in terms of the humble heat engine in thermodynamics.

Admittedly, if you were wanting an introduction to galactic astronomy this would not be the book for you, but, for its target audience it is an amazing book.

Very badly written - and confusing...
I read the complete book but I must admit I understood very little of it. The main reason for this is that the authors seem to have written the book for those who already are fully versed in the technical details of the subject. I am not, and I was hoping this book would elevate my understanding of the field. Unfortunately it did not. Furthermore, I found the book completely lacking in information about the more recent discoveries in cosmology. It appears to be about ten years behind.

Very disappointing
There are three specific areas in which this book fails. I will address them in turn: 1) The information is way out of date. Although the publishing date is recent, the authors have made very little attempt to present the major advances that have occurred in this science over the last few years. As a result of this problem, there is some critical information in the book that is simply inaccurate. The information reflects understandings that are five to ten years old - not what we know today. 2) The writing style is very difficult to follow. The authors seem to think they are writing for their fellow professional astronomers, not for students. They don't explain the concepts sufficiently and they end up leaving the reader confused and disappointed. 3) About half the pages are mostly mathematics. This is fine if you understand advanced math and you can follow the authors reasoning. The problem is that as I closely checked the math I found glaring errors in it. On just about every few pages there would be a math error. This makes it that much more difficult to understand the information. I would suggest you save your money - and frustration! Find a better book.

Thorough treatment of the subject of Galaxies
Galactic Astronomy is one of the most complete and up to date texts on the subject of galaxies. The text is not lacking in mathematical rigor and also includes the results of recent observations and analyses that complement the theoretical exposition of subjects. It ties together results from many fields and is a good text for anyone who is interested in the study of our Milky Way or of external galaxies. The first chapters include a good description of such basic topics as coordinate systems, astrometry, the magnitude scale, stellar spectra, and binary star kinematics. Other chapters include the Milky Way's stars, stellar populations, interstellar medium, star clusters, and stellar kinematics and show how our knowledge of these has been applied to better understand external galaxies as well. There are also chapters on galaxy morphology and the cosmological distance scale. Nice features of the book include a handy listing of astronomical research aids that are available on the world wide web, as well as lists of astronomical sky surveys and catalogs. Altogether, Galactic Astronomy is worth reading by any professional astronomer, grad student, or advanced undergraduate with an interest in the study of galaxies. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Trinh Xuan Thuan, whose books of popular science are bestsellers in France, is an astronomer by training. In Chaos and Harmony, he reaches well beyond the immediate bounds of that field to consider the explosion of scientific knowledge of all kinds in the 20th century, and he muses on the very nature of scientific inquiry.

The most important aspect of a theory of science, in Trinh's view, is not that it be verifiable experimentally, but that it "allow beauty and truth to emerge into one." General relativity is a hallmark in this regard. Unendingly rich in insight and implication, as well as "inevitable, simple, and congruent with the whole," it has enabled cosmologists to range across the whole of time and to conceive of such phenomena as black holes and curved space. Trinh applies his beauty-and-truth criterion to various problems, such as where the moon--the largest known satellite in the solar system--came from, how chaos theory can properly be applied to economic modeling, and why nature seems to favor symmetry. Along the way, Trinh pauses to remark on episodes in the history of science and to make gentle but provocative asides (for example, gainsaying Einstein to insist that God does indeed play dice with the universe). Elegant and lively, Trinh's book is a fine survey of contemporary scientific ideas and a look ahead at science's ongoing quest for a unifying Theory of Everything. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Reviews (7)

hard to decipher
As a reviewer below notes, this book is neoplatonism obscured by much well described science.

On page 332, the author writes-- "Our abitlity to do science and decipher the cosmic code suggests an intimate connection between the world of the mind and that of Platonic forms. The universe has produced human beings capable of understanding it. The loop is now closed. I believe that it did not happen by accident. ... The universe does have a meaning, and it is man who, by understanding it, bestows that meaning on it."

One must cover a lot of territory between the Foreword which only barely hints at the hidden Platonism and page 332. Such deciphering becomes extremely tedious...

General Information
Without getting into specifics you read Chaos, Symetry and Harmony. A good description of all modern theories and how they tie to Chaos without concrete reasoning. Yes Stock Market behaves like Chaos so what do you do with that, i could not get the answer. I would call it more like a summary of modern physics

Good popular science, but not really philosophy
Just so you get an idea of Dr. Thuan's philosophical viewpoint, he is a neo-Platonist (in the sense that he believes in a self-existing reality where mathematics "resides") and he believes that the universe was designed. He also thinks that determinism is bad. If you agree with any or all of these perspectives, you probably won't find any new reasons to support your viewpoint. If you disagree, you will probably find little here to convince you otherwise. This is not a philosophically original work.

But Dr. Thuan does offer an engagingly written (if brief) account of much of the history of modern physics--big bang cosmology, electromagnetism, special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, strong and weak nuclear forces, particle physics--as well as some fun topics like black holes and wormholes, and he teases the reader with short accounts of potential research areas such as superstring theory and supersymmetry. His treatment is nice since we get not only the results of modern physics, but also some sense as to how we got them in the first place, which is often missing in works of popular science.

My only complaints (other than the possibly misleading title) are:
* I wish he would have been a little more careful to distinguish the behavior of chaotic systems from the operation of "chaos theory" in Chapter 3.
* In Chapter 6 I wish he would have given more rigorous reasons than his personal incredulity for doubting that natural selection can account for the diversity of life. At least he could have gotten a biologist's perspective--he quoted quite often from physicists and mathematicians, so presumably it wouldn't have been very hard to get a relevant comment from a biologist.
* I found his comments on the "evils" of determinism in Chapter 7 to be distracting and beside the point, but perhaps others will see merit in them.

Overall, it's a good read if you want to get a general sense of some of the more important advances in physics, but if it's philosophy you're looking for, you could do better elsewhere.

What an amazing book!
I thoroughly enjoyed Xuan Thuan Trinh's approach to describing a modern view of the Universe. He ties many of the common themes underlying modern physics and science together. He also beautifully inter-weaves them together to give us all a better perspective on the advances that will come in the 21st century.

Vivid, accessible overview of the latest theories ...
A clear, eloquent, and graceful discussion of how recent scientifc discoveries impact our lives in more than just theoretical terms. Thuan begins with a wonderfully vivid, accessible overview of the latest theories about chaos, gravity, strange attractors, fractals, symmetry, superstrings, and the strangeness of atoms, and reveals how these discoveries have shaped our view of the universe. From the subatomic world to the vastness of quasars and galaxies, from the nature of mathematics to the fractal characteristics of the human circulatory system, Trinh Xuan Thuan takes us on a truly awe-inspiring tour of the universe as we know it today. With brilliant analogies that open up the strangest, often counterintuitive theories about all sorts of things most of us don't take the time to consider, what Thuan really shows readers in Chaos and Harmony is how science has actually restored mystery and amazement to the world around us. ... Read more

Book Description

This unique volume provides a complete reference on variable stars. It presents a wealth of typical light- and color-curves to allow identification, together with a detailed and up-to-date description of each subclass. The editors, together with seven other world experts, have created a unique pictorial atlas of variable stars. In the first chapter they give a clear introduction to the nomenclature and classification of the light curves of variable stars, and to photometric systems. In the remaining chapters they provide a detailed account of each subclass: from eruptive, pulsating, rotating and cataclysmic variables, to eclipsing-binary systems and X-ray binaries. Readers can quickly and easily locate specific variable stars, types and classes of variables, and key astrophysical terms in the book by means of detailed object-name and subject indexes. This comprehensive and up-to-date volume provides an essential reference for all those interested in variable stars--from researchers and graduate students to dedicated amateurs. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Variable Star Menagerie
This book is written for professional astronomers as a compendium of what is known (and unknown) about variable stars. (A lot of the "unknowns" are categorized as "poorly understood.") I consider the book very useful for amateur variable star observers, but general readers (it will be worth the effort) will likely need to refer to an introductory astronomical tutorial to interpret much of the material.

The "menagerie" of variables is subdivided into six natural groups bearing the following names with the numbers of sub-classes in each group as shown. Eruptive (5), Pulsating [including Cepheids] (7), Rotating [including Pulsars] (5), Cataclysmic [including Novae] (5), Eclipsing binaries (4), and X-Ray binaries (1).

The stars in the first four groups are presented as single stars that do "poorly understood" but weird and wonderful things such as radial pulsations. One subclass of pulsating variables is alternatively explained as a close binary with a common envelope.

(Gamma-Ray bursters are not covered but many light curves of these enigmatic objects bear strong resemblance to those of some X-Ray binaries.)

The book discusses a total of 279 different variable stars and provides light curves and graphed color information for 164 of them. The bibliography contains 521 references. Two pages of neat "addresses of interest" are given for new researchers to use to obtain further information.

The book faithfully reflects a longstanding astronomical tradition of publishing very few "phase-coordinated" light curves and spectroscopic line profiles in the same study. If phase coordinated line profile information were to be incorporated with the light curves, the book might well become a paradigm flipping tool. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Imagining Space is a lovely coffee-table collection of artists' renderings, photographs, and schematics, along with a comprehensive history of the human effort to explore space and a look at what's ahead. Starting with paintings from the 1950s of what vehicles and their destinations might look like, and zooming through the decades to fantastic renderings of upcoming space technology, NASA historian Roger D. Launius and American University professor Howard E. McCurdy offer a fascinating overview of the promise of the final frontier.

With a foreword by Ray Bradbury and space art by Chesley Bonestell, Imagining Space has a solid science fiction pedigree. But some of this stuff is real, and images from achievements like moon landings, interplanetary probes, and the Mars rover seem even more amazing when juxtaposed with the wide-eyed scientific speculations of domed habitats and faster-than-light propulsion systems. After all, the rover really got built ... and it worked! No one really knows where we'll go next, or who'll pay for it, but it's exciting to think that we're likely to go somewhere by 2050, even if it's just high enough to admire our own beautiful planet from a distance. --Therese Littleton ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Achievements, Predictions, Possibilities: 1950-2050
Not a simple chronology of space exploration, this volume looks at why humans want to go and what they want to do when they get there. Life on Mars, extraterrestrial life, space warfare, and space colonization are among the ideas whose histories are explored. The stories of the people who developed the technology to go to space, their ideas, theories, and inventions are related, with many color illustrations. Launius is a historian and editor; McCurdy teaches public affairs at the American U. in Washington DC.

With stunningly beautiful illustrations
With a special foreword by famed science fiction author Ray Bradbury, Imagining Space: Achievements, Predications, Possibilities 1950-2050 is an amazing, informative, thought-provoking, and superbly illustrated armchair traveler's guide - one that takes the reader to other planets, past the solar system, and beyond the Milky Way galaxy. It looks back to the 1950 predictions of rocket scientists and science fiction authors, to the present day space program, and forward to the possibilities of 2050. Chief NASA historian Roger D. Launius and Dr. Howard E. McCurdy of American University explore the dreams and realities of our past and future as connected to space travel, including speculations of one day exploring Mars and creating space colonies. Imagining Space is written in lay terminology so that its dreams can easily be imparted to the casual reader, but by far its most vivid asset are its stunningly beautiful illustrations; over 150 artists' renderings and photographs display a breathtaking, unforgettable glimpse into the past, present, and future of space travel. Very highly recommended for non-specialist general readers with an interest in the future beyond the boundaries of the Earth. ... Read more

Book Description

The force of gravity acting over eons has provided the solar system with an intricate dynamical structure, much of it revealed by recent space missions. This comprehensive introduction to the dynamical features of the solar system also provides all the mathematical tools and physical models needed for a complete understanding of the subject. Clearly written and well illustrated coverage shows how a basic knowledge of the two- and three-body problems and perturbation theory can be combined to understand features as diverse as the tidal heating of Jupiter's moon Io, the origin of the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt, and the radial structure of Saturn's rings. Problems at the end of each chapter and a free Internet Mathematica® software package help students to fully develop their understanding of the subject.This volume provides an authoritative textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on planetary dynamics and celestial mechanics. It also equips students with the mathematical tools to tackle broader courses on dynamics, dynamical systems, applications of chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics.Written by two leading figures in planetary dynamics, it is a benchmark publication in the field and destined to become a classic. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Authoritative, Fascinating, Challenging
Three books on our solar system appeared in the past year or so. Each has its own "flavor." I will review them in turn, but browsers should be aware of the others, so they are listed here: See also, "The New Solar System," J. Kelly Beatty, Carolyn Collins Petersen, Andrew Chalkin, and "The Planetary Scientist's Companion," Katharine Lodders and Bruce Fegley, Jr.

If one of the other books, "The New Solar System" is lacking in mathematics, this volume more than makes up for it. Although my current interest, the Titius/Bode Law, is given only one page of description, it is a full and fair assessment of this astronomical curiosity. The authors immediately follow this on p. 9 by a statement that sums up the flavor of the rest of the book: "...It is Newton's laws that are at work and the subtle gravitational effect that determines the dynamical structure of our solar system is the phenomenon of 'resonance'." Planets do not circle the sun independently, they influence each other's orbits in fascinating and subtle ways, some of which may take billions of years to evolve.

The manifold aspects of "resonance" can be seen in the Chapter headings: The Two-Body Problem, The Restricted Three-Body Problem, Tides, Rotation, and Shape, Spin-Orbit Coupling, The Disturbing Function, Secular Perturbations, Resonant Perturbations, Chaos and Long-Term Evolution, and Planetary Rings.

The mathematics appears to be straightforward, but like most perturbation theory, it is not simple. Calculus is essential, of course. However, I welcome it. It will challenge my curiosity and ability for many years to come.

This is a compelling, must-have book for the advanced student of the science underlying our solar system and probably of other planetary systems as well. ... Read more

Book Description

Celestial Mechanics has achieved spectacular results on the structure and evolution of the Solar System in the last 20 years.This book describes recent results on Solar System dynamics, with a solid theoretical basis and is strongly focused on the dynamics of planets and of small bodies. Modern Celestial Mechanics will be of great interest to graduate students and researchers of astronomy and astrophysics. ... Read more

Book Description

This completely revised and corrected new edition provides several new examples and exercises to enable deeper insight into the formalism and application of Quantum Electrodynamics.

Greiner and Reinhardt's thorough introductory text provides all necessary mathematical tools, together with many examples and worked problems. In their presentation of the subject, the authors adopt a heuristic approach based on the propagator formalism. The latter is introduced in the first two chapters in both its nonrelativistic and relativistic versions. Subsequently, a large number of scattering and radiation processes involving electrons, positrons, and photons are introduced and their theoretical treatment is presented in great detail. Higher order processes and renormalization are also included. The book concludes with a discussion of two-particle states and the interaction of spinless bosons. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Excellent for self-study - My highest recommendations
This book basically covers the same material as chapters 6-9 of the classic "Relativistic Quantum Mechanics" by Bjorken & Drell.
- Propagator
- Basic Quantum Electrodynamical Processes
- The Scattering Matrix in Higher Order (including good discussions of vacuum polarization, electron self-energy the and vertex correction)
- QED of spinless bosons

In addition to this it covers bound systems and strong fields, which are not discussed in B&D. The book also does a good job of working out a lot of the details missing from B&D.

The only minuses are:
-- some of the more advanced topics in B&D are dropped.
-- there are a lot of typos (but the alert reader should spot them easily)

Most accurate theory in physics.
QED is known as the most accurate theory in physics. This text nicely explains the major achievements in QED by Feynmann, Schwniger, and Tomonaga. Important connection among relativities, quantum mechanics, and classical electrodynamics. ... Read more

Book Description

How does it happen that billions of stars can cooperate to produce the beautiful spirals that characterize so many galaxies, including ours? This book presents a theory of spiral structure that has been developed over the past three decades under the continuous stimulus of new observational studies. The theory unfolds in a way that can be grasped by any reader with an undergraduate science background who is interested in astronomy, as well as by graduate students and scientists actively involved in astronomy or related subjects who want to see the "backbone" and the physical content of the theory. The foundations of this theoretical framework were laid in the early 1960s, following the pioneering work of B. Lindblad. C. C. Lin had already contributed significantly to the field of fluid mechanics when he turned his attention to spiral structures, and he has focused on the problem ever since. Giuseppe Bertin joined this research effort when he first visited at MIT in 1975, bringing to the project knowledge from his work on elliptical galaxies and plasma astrophysics. Together, Bertin and Lin have contributed to the exciting developments on spiral structure of the last few decades, working closely with many observers and other theorists. In this book they describe the density-wave theory with the goal of making the key concepts and astrophysical implications explicit and accessible. The essence of the solution Bertin and Lin present is that the spirals are wave rather than material phenomena and generally trace intrinsic characteristics of the individual galaxies. The book is in three parts -- Physical Concepts, Observational Studies, and Dynamical Mechanisms -- with most of the technical details confinedto the last part. ... Read more

Book Description

This innovative book provides a clear and pedagogical introduction to research through a series of problems and answers. The author has designed the problems to develop each core topic in a simple and coherent way, and he provides full solutions to make this book completely self-contained. The first half of the book covers the core subjects of astrophysical processes, gravitational dynamics, radiative processes, fluid mechanics and general relativity. The second half uses these concepts to develop modern cosmology; topics include the Friedmann model and thermal history, the dynamics of dark matter and baryons in an expanding universe, the physics of high-redshift objects and the very early universe. This unique self-study textbook will be of key interest to graduate students and researchers in cosmology, astrophysics, relativity and theoretical physics. It is particularly well suited to graduate-level courses. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Hard... but excellent!
This is a very welcomed book for graduate students in astrophysics. Although I have only scratched the surface of the topics, I find its format and distribution very well organized. The solutions are also clearly exposed, but you need a very high background to work on the problems entirely on your own. ... Read more

Book Description

This book investigates the question of how matter has evolved since its origin in the Big Bang, from the cosmological synthesis of hydrogen and helium to the generation of the complex set of nuclei that comprise our world and our selves. A central theme is the evolution of gravitationally contained thermonuclear reactors, otherwise known as stars. Our current understanding is presented systematically and quantitatively, by combining simple analytic models with new state-of-the-art computer simulations.

The narrative begins with the clues (primarily the solar system abundance pattern), the constraining physics (primarily nuclear and particle physics), and the thermonuclear burning in the Big Bang itself. It continues with a step-by-step description of how stars evolve by nuclear reactions, a critical investigation of supernova explosion mechanisms and the formation of neutron stars and of black holes, and an analysis of how such explosions appear to astronomers (illustrated by comparison with recent observations). It concludes with a synthesis of these ideas for galactic evolution, with implications for nucleosynthesis in the first generation of stars and for the solar system abundance pattern. Emphasis is given to questions that remain open, and to active research areas that bridge the disciplines of astronomy, cosmochemistry, physics, and planetary and space science. Extensive references are given. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A must for graduate students
"Supernovae and Nucleosynthesis" is not a textbook, but it is extremely useful for astronomy students, especially in stellar and chemical evolution. There are lots of formulae, tables and figures, helping to understand the basics of synthesis and evolution of nuclei in our Cosmos. The thermonuclear reactions are well-explained, but less emphasis was taken in chemical evolution (especially in the observational part). In some parts is similar to the classic stellar evolution textbook by Clayton, but with update material. This book is a must for any astronomy library, serious students and professional astronomers. ... Read more